Anarchy and apathy battle it out on @ndy's blog.

Tagged with The Lads Society

Update (April 28, 2019) : The ‘White Rose Society’ has published an account of the little fascist shit Max Towns, the 19yo what allegedly assaulted the photographer @ Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning’s campaign launch @ Cronulla on Friday. The article also contains an appeal for more infos on the subject of neo-Nazi activist Troy Crockett, an associate of Blair Cottrell’s and the UPF and a member of ‘The Lads Society’. Crockett has not previously been publicly named but has otherwise been active as ‘Trè Blackstone’, ‘Trè Bloodstone’, ‘Troy’ or ‘Trè Targaryen’ and ‘Trè Greystoke’.

Update : The fascist teenybopper who allegedly punched a photographer at Anning’s media conference in Cronulla today is ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) NSW associate Max Towns. Towns has form, being one of a dozen or so meatheads who joined neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell in monstering entertainer Dandyman outta Fed Square in Melbourne following the TBC flagwit parade in June last year, and otherwise reportedly enjoys attacking leftist women along King Street in Newtown. The TBC was of course one of the groups the Christchurch killer was a YUGE fan of, and the TBC in QLD has organised a picnic for FACNP candidate Perry Adrelius and other patriotik candidates this Sunday in Gatton …

As usual, I’ll examine candidates for the 2019 Australian federal election from the far left and the far right at a later date, but in the meantime I thought I’d take a brief look at the few score Volk who’ve decided to join Senator Fraser Anning in his pursuit of a Final Solution to The Immigration &/Or Muslim Problem. With the possible exception of Anning himself, none have any real chance of being elected to office, and their entry into the contest may well simply end up fracturing the far right vote, pitted as they will be against Pauline Hanson’s mob. Still, as the Prime Minister put it so eloquently ‘If you have a go, you get a go’, so who knows who’ll end up getting what.

In summary then, Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (FACNP) is fielding candidates in 45 seats in the House of Representatives — 30 in Queensland, 6 in Victoria, 5 in New South Wales and two each in the Northern Territory and Tasmania — along with Senate teams in every state and territory. Most are unknown figures, with just a handful having any kind of public profile, and others transferring their political loyalties from a previous micro-party to Anning’s.

A semi-professional climate change denialist, scribbler for Quadrant and The Spectator who reckons single moms are too lazy and stoopid to attract a mate, Archibald is a former One Nation Party (ONP) candidate (Western Australian state election, 2017: Pilbara) and one of several aspiring MPs to have jumped ship for Anning’s party. (He also ran in the federal seat of Curtin in 2016 for the anti-Muslim micro-party ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’, which is now known as ‘Yellow Vest Australia’).

• Adrian Cheok (Boothby, SA)

A Bannon and Trump fanboy, Professor Cheok got a few moments in the spotlight last year. Hence:

The political views of Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and co-founder of the far-right Breitbart News, are considered repugnant by many people in academe.

So when it was announced last week that Bannon would be a keynote speaker at the Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology conference, to be held at the University of Montana’s flagship campus in December, people revolted. Bannon is said to be an architect of Gamergate, a 2014 hashtag campaign that brought virtual hatred to women and minorities in the gaming community.

The other keynote speaker dropped out. The university distanced itself. A hashtag circulated, calling for those who had submitted papers to withdraw them, and for potential attendees to boycott the conference.
The Future of Learning

And at the center of the outrage is Adrian David Cheok, who in the past year has alienated his colleagues through a presentation on sex robots, and by his online emulation of the only hard-right figure more famous than Bannon: President Trump.

Just a few weeks ago, Cheok was urging the importance of voting for the Christian fun-da-mentalist ‘Rise Up Australia Party’ (RUAP), but has obviously changed his mind, and now urges concerned citizens to support Final Solution.

• Julie Hoskin (Bendigo, VIC)

You may remember Julie Hoskin from such anti-Muslim groups as ‘Rights For Bendigo Residents’ (2014–), which among other things staged demonstrations against and launched a legal challenge to the construction of a mosque in the Victorian town. Unhappily for Hoskin, the legal challenged ultimately failed, and she ended up owing tens of thousands to solicitor Robert Balzola, who undertook the case. Consequently, in September last year, Hoskin was declared bankrupt and forced to resign her seat on Bendigo council. As a result, Hoskin is likely ineligible to take up a seat in parliament in the miraculous event (“Praise Jesus!”) she should win.

Not to be confused with the serial killer AKA ‘The Beast of Birkenshaw’, Manuel is a ‘salt-of-the-earth farmer’ according to his comrade David Flint. Further, according to the elderly monarchist, at the nineteenth annual gathering of ‘Australians for Constitutional Monarchy’, Manuel warned that ‘mainly republican politicians who prefer to waste money on buying votes or on massive financial disasters like the NBN … prefer to have our water flow out to sea while unleashing a reign of terror on our persecuted farmers as if they were latter-day Kulaks’ (‘Aux bien pensants’, Spectator, February 16, 2019). When he’s not being a persecuted, climate-change denying Kulak, Manuel may be found touting the virtues of some thing called ‘FLAG Australia’.

• Scott Moerland (Oxley, QLD)

Scott Moerland is best known for being one of the faces of ‘Reclaim Australia’ in Queensland and a founding member of the ‘United Patriots Front’ (2015–2017). A Christian, Moerland ran for RUAP at the 2013 federal election and received 400 votes (0.53%) for his troubles. Otherwise, Moerland’s candidacy contradicts Anning’s claim, made in early April, that he would rule out running anyone tied to Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson (Moerland’s former UPF comrades).

• Rod Smith (Wright, QLD)

Another Hanson reject, Smith was the One Nation candidate for the federal seat of Wright in 2016 (18,461 votes/20.9%), the QLD state seat of Scenic Rim in 2017 (8,662 votes/27.6%), and the federal seat of Page (NSW) in 2013 (1,381 votes/1.61%).

• Paul Taylor (Senate, QLD)

Like Moerland, Taylor is a former candidate for ONP and RUAP, standing for ONP in Capalaba at the 2017 Queensland state election (gaining 6,049 votes or 19.5%) and as a Senate candidate for RUAP in Queensland at the 2016 federal election (receiving 5,734 votes or 0.21%). Taylor is a Good Christian and a migrant from India.

• Adam Vail (Calwell, VIC)

On his Facebook page promoting his campaign, Vail endorsed Bill Heffernan’s 2015 claims about elite paedophile rings, concluding that ‘If you put a number in a box on any ballot paper that now makes YOU an enabler of Paedophile filth’.

• Shane Van Duren (Senate, ACT)

A former soldier with 3RAR, Van Duren’s candidacy was soon brought into question on account of his criminal record — he assaulted a police officer and choked an RSPCA inspector in Canberra in 2015, and last year was involved in an exciting escapade with his brother Owen in Thailand — and as a result it would seem likely that, in the extraordinary event he was elected to the Senate from Canberra, he too would be ineligible to sit.

On Thursday, ABC’s ‘Background Briefing’ published several articles documenting the involvement of various far-right personalities in Senator Fraser Anning’s party and office, among them Andrew Wilson and Radomir Kobryn-Colleti.

tl;dr : A number of key figures from a radical right-wing political and social network — previously implicated in the infiltration of the Young Nationals last year and the (ultimately-unsuccessful) attempt to seize control of the Humanist Society in NSW ten years ago — have been recruited into Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (CNP), where they play a key role in the CNP’s 2019 Australian federal election campaign.

Of the young men involved in the CNP, as well as the networks which facilitated their passage, some further details may be found by way of thewhiterosesociety, but in the meantime:

• Radomir Kobryn-Coletti is ‘a conscientious and highly talented individual who’s personal skills and diverse network make him stand out as one of Perth’s most attractive young entrepreneurs’. Or at least, that’s how he describes himself on his LinkedIn profile; others may beg to differ.
• Morgan Munro is another ‘attractive young entrepreneur’ from Perth, who made his debut on AltRight website ‘The Unhinged’ on Hitler’s birthday in 2018, and has since become a regular contributor, with most of his content revolving around events in his new home of Melbourne.
• Zack Newton has closed his Facebook account but remains open for fashy business.
• Boston White is innocent.
• Andrew Wilson is ‘a toxic leach on the face of Australian nationalism … who lives off character assassination’. Well, according to one critic, anyway (see below). According to neo-Nazi troll Nathan Sykes and the Australia First Party, Wilson is A Very Bad Egg who’s implicated in a range of dirty tricks against them, performed for the benefit of the Liberal Party in Sydney. He’s also a veteran agitator and was once, in the early 2000s, the lvl boss of the ‘Patriotic Youth League’, a failed attempt by AFP to establish a yoof wing. At this time, Wilson was also a member of the Australian franchise of now-defunct neo-Nazi grouplet Volksfront (VF dissolved in 2012/3 after one of its associates, Wade Michael Page, shot to death six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, USA).

The fallout from the ABC’s reportage has to date been minimal, with the usual denials being issued and some minor online recomposition taking place. Thus when asked for commentary on the matter the Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed it as some kind of ‘conspiracy theory’, while Anning himself has declared that he knows nothing and besides, what his employees do in their leisure time is none of his concern. One minor casualty of the affair has been the boys’ Facebook page ‘Abhorrent Australian Memes Did Nothing Wrong’ (itself an alternate for an earlier page titled ‘Abhorrent Australian Memes’) which has now been unpublished. The reasons for this are unclear, though it may have something to do with the page publishing a photo taken in federal parliament of Greens MP Larissa Waters — an action which is apparently contrary to parliamentary regulations.

On the same day as the Background Briefing report was published, in Townsville Senator Anning announced his Senatorial team in Queensland: Paul Taylor, Mark Absolon, Nancy Sandford and Brad Cameron. Previously, he’d introduced Perry Adrelius as the party’s candidate for Groom, Rod Smith for Wright, and Tim Dwyer and Peter Manuel for the Senate in South Australia.

Anning extended an invitation to the public to nominate themselves as candidates for his party by way of an email sent earlier in the month:

Hi all,

You are receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in standing for election as a candidate for Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party.

Our initial intention was to make first contact with each of you by phone within a few days (and members of our team have already spoken to a significant number of you), but the sheer volume of nominations has overwhelmed any possibility of that. At the moment we are a small team trying to coordinate a movement that has exploded into something much, much bigger than ourselves. And with the Federal Election having just been called there is not a lot of time to do it.

The close of nominations is midday on the 23rd of April, and we want to have nominations finalised a couple of days before then. This means we need to substantially accelerate the nomination process.

This email is therefore going to serve as what would ordinarily be the first step of our interview and vetting process. It will lay out bluntly and frankly what the expectations of our candidates are and allow you to decide if you want to continue in this process. The goal is to quickly weed out as many of the uncommitted, unprepared, and unsuitable as possible.

The first thing I want to do with this email is to make clear exactly what the commitments of being a candidate are. If you have not previously had any experience in politics, this might be intimidating.

FINANCIAL COMMITMENT

Firstly, you will need to pay a nomination deposit of $2000 to get on the ballot paper … Then on top of that are the costs of the campaign. Campaign costs are variable depending on what you choose to invest in and how much you decide to spend, but don’t expect to be able to run a credible campaign with less than $5000.

You will be refunded your $2000 nomination deposit and campaign spending (up to $2.73 per vote won – approximately $2500-$3000 per percentage point in a lower house electorate) if you secure 4% or more of the vote at the election. However, you need to be able to put this money up out of pocket and potentially lose it all if things don’t go right for you. Even if you are successful enough to reclaim your expenses, you may need to wait for a significant period for your claim to be processed. If you don’t have the liquidity to dedicate these sorts of resources towards a campaign, it would be wise to take a step back.

ELIGIBILITY

When nominating you will need to complete this form [snip]. There are various reasons why you may not be constitutionally eligible for nomination. Dual citizenship is the obvious one, and if you have parents or grandparents from another country, you should provide evidence of why that does not make you a dual citizen.

Additionally working in a government job or having some sort of contract with the government may also disqualify you. So does being an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent or being under sentence for a crime punishable by 12 months imprisonment or more.

Go through the form linked above, and if you have any difficulties completing it in a way that confirms your constitutional eligibility to be elected, you should strongly consider withdrawing from the process.

POLICY

The objects of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party are as follows:

i) the vision of Sir Henry Parkes of Australia as an English speaking, predominantly European Christian Commonwealth, as originally described in 1901 when Australia as a nation was founded;

ii) social cohesion by an immigration program that gives preference to those best able to integrate and assimilate;

iii) traditional family values, including recognising marriage as only the union of a man and a woman and the sanctity of human life at all ages, including both the unborn and the elderly;

ix) Australian ownership of our infrastructure, manufacturing and agriculture;

x) widely distributed ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange through owner operated farms, small business and co-operatives;

xi) collective bargaining in agriculture and industry;

xii) orderly marketing of agricultural products;

xiii) the development of rural and regional infrastructure and the re-industrialisation of Australia;

xiv) an end to usury through the establishment of a not-for-profit government bank;

xv) the right to own firearms and use them in self-defence;

xvi) welfare as a safety net but restricted to citizens;

xvii) citizens initiated referenda and voluntary voting;

xviii) decentralisation of power and competitive federalism;

xix) a fair taxation system that encourages productivity and savings and rewards hard work;

xx) the restoration of Australia’s national sovereignty through repudiation of coercive international treaties and a foreign policy that puts Australia first;

xxi) a capable and well-resourced military and strong support for our veterans.

Please read all of the above points carefully. If you are not able to whole heartedly support each and every point in this platform, please withdraw yourself from this process. Contradicting the party platform in any way will be grounds for immediate disendorsement. The reason is we expect the media will exploit any difference of view between Fraser and a candidate – even a small difference. While we respect people having different views, Party candidates have to be solid.

VOLUNTEERS

Ideally you will have a strong network of friends and supporters you can rely on to help you in your campaign. We will help our network of supporters to make contact with the endorsed candidate in each electorate, but it will be incumbent on each candidate to run their own campaign, including coordinating volunteers.

The most labour-intensive job will be handing out how-to-vote cards. Follow this link and choose your electorate, then select “polling places” to see all the locations you will need volunteers to man on election day. It’s not uncommon for a single electorate to have around 50 polling places, and usually its better to have two supporters at each location.

It’s common for many parties to be unable to have volunteers at all polling locations. However, the more people you have doing it, the higher your vote will be.

We are hopeful that strong public support for Senator Anning will translate into an unusually strong “ground game”.

POTENTIAL CONTROVERSY

If you have issues in your life that may attract attention and criticism of Senator Anning and the party, you must proactively disclose them to us before being nominated. We are not afraid of criticism, but we need to know ahead of time what issues may arise. These issues may include:

– Past criminal or legal issues

– Controversial career paths

– Previous political associations

– Publicly expressed positions or actions that may conflict with the objects of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party

– Inflammatory social media comments

– Anything else that could become an issue

It will be grounds for immediate disendorsement if an issue emerges during the campaign that you have not revealed to us ahead of time. If you are in any doubt, disclose it.

MEDIA

All media requests will need to be passed on to and approved by Senator Anning’s media advisor. We want you to get publicity, but we are also mindful of avoiding media traps.

If you are being interviewed and are asked a loaded question designed to have no good answer (as a classic example, “Have you stopped beating your wife?”), remember that the best way to respond is usually by challenging the premise of the question (e.g. “I never beat my wife in the first place”).

If you get truly flustered, simply state the party’s position and say it is up to the public to decide if that is what they want.

And most importantly, you must never qualify or retreat from the policy platform of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party. The number one way for our enemies to undermine the credibility of the party is to get candidates to contradict Senator Anning in some way. It is essential that voters can trust that if they vote for the party they will get exactly what they are being promised. No matter how much pressure is put on you, you must never concede any point. Failure to adhere to the objects of the party will be grounds for immediate disendorsement.

Our intent is to give each candidate a mock interview where we pose the type of questions they may be asked by the media during the campaign to test their readiness to represent the party.

SENATE CANDIDATES

Currently, we have a great many candidates who have indicated interest in Senate positions. That is of course to be expected as Senate candidates are the ones most likely to be successful, but it is inevitable that a very large number of candidates will be rejected. On the other hand it’s a good problem to have as it means that we can afford to be very selective about who we choose for our Senate team.

If you are someone who has indicated interest in standing for the Senate, we would love it if you would consider standing in your local electorate instead. While we already have more than enough potential candidates to stand in every lower house seat, they are not evenly distributed and there are still some electorates which no candidate has nominated for.

On the other hand if you believe you are an unusually strong candidate, you may still wish to be considered for a lead Senate nomination.

THE NEXT STEPS

If after reading everything above you still want to represent Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party at the election, great! We really value your passion, your support, and your dedication.

Please respond to this email by completing the attached declaration form to indicate your continued interest.

Following that, expect to be contacted by phone for an interview …

Scores have applied to become candidates for the election, though only a handful have been officially confirmed as yet, and nominations will not officially close until April 23. Still, the Very Normal folks who’ve applied to or indicated an interest in contributing to Anning’s Final Solution range from ammosexuals to budding C&W stars, bureaucrats to lawyers, neo-Nazi thugs to racist tradies and Xtian fun-da-mentalist preachers. Most, in other words, are Ordinary Mums & Dads™, though a few are more familiar figures, drawn from the One Nation, Palmer United and Rise Up Australia parties, and some will be famous soon enough I expect.

To begin with, in media reportage on the killer’s situation within the Australian far right milieu, much attention has been drawn to three organisations in particular: ‘Antipodean Resistance’ (AR), ‘The Lads Society’ (TLS) and the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF). In this context, it’s important to note that, first, while there are critical differences between them, and only AR openly espouses neo-Nazism, all three are the natural outgrowth of the wave of public organising undertaken by the far-right under the umbrella of ‘Reclaim Australia’ (2015–). Secondly, members of all three groups remain politically active and, finally, all can be read as particular expressions of much (much) larger political and social networks, for which the dominant social media and publishing platforms — Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — have provided and will continue to provide a critical part of their organisational framework.

In a recent public statement, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, declared that, using its AI tools, AR, TLS and UPF, along with the ‘National Front New Zealand’, were being removed from Facebook. As noted, the UPF page was deleted in May 2017, AR did not have a public page on Facebook … though The Lads Society page has indeed since been removed from the platform. Since the statement, a handful of other pages and groups have also been removed, including pages for NSW, QLD, SA and WA franchises of the ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) and a right-wing fanboy page titled ‘Australian Meditations’. Hundreds of other similar, Australian-based pages and groups of course remain.

The manifesto and writings on the weapons used by Tarrant identify him as a white supremacist. His manifesto opens with an image used by other white supremacists and similar to one that previously appeared on a white supremacist website, Order 15, a group with an international presence which is focused on building a parallel, self-sufficient white society because they believe the societies of most western nations are “irreversibly broken.” The manifesto subtitle includes the words “Towards a new society,” also from the Order 15 website.

Be that as it may, in Australia O15 maintains a presence on Facebook. (But note that, like others, O15 has a tendency to appear, disappear, and then reappear, both under this name and by way of other handles.) O15 is linked to the UPF by way of one of its central members, Kris0 Richardson. Thus before joining the UPF, Kris0 established the ‘United Australian Front’ (UAF) website and Facebook page. In-between noting the UAF’s development (August 2016) into a straightforwardly neo-Nazi project, the Facebook page was closed and re-badged itself as O15, though ostensibly under the control of some of Richardson’s mates. Another right-wing activist associated with O15 in Australia is Newcastle-based Shane Worrall, who was a key organiser for Reclaim Australia in 2015. Currently, Worrall stands accused of ripping off farmers via a fund he established in 2016, and goes to court over the matter in June.

With all that said …

• The list below is intended to be illustrative, not exhaustive;
• Hundreds if not thousands of Facebook pages and groups, Twitter accounts, and YouTube channels are utilised by the far right in Australia. Documenting these is beyond my capabilities and I choose instead to focus upon more stable expressions of same;
• A number of groups and projects are now defunct. This is indicated by use of a strike. I’ve included them for the purposes of historical accuracy but, in the event I publish another guide in the future and assuming that they remain inert, I will remove them;
• New entries are marked with an *;
• The number of people in Australia engaging with far right propaganda has expanded considerably in the intervening period, as has social media’s monopolisation of online communications;
• There’s a good deal more material on all of the groups listed available elsewhere on the blog;
• The far right in Australia must necessarily be understood in terms of its history and a broader political and social context. This post does not attempt to provide that context, but a glimpse is available by way of ‘The Radical Right in Australia’ (Andy Fleming and Aurelien Mondon, The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, Edited by Jens Rydgren, Oxford University Press, 2018):

Compared to its European counterparts, Australia was for the most part spared the rise of powerful extreme right movements, and at times appeared immune to their appeal. However, rather than immunity, the absence of extreme right politics can be explained by the ability and willingness of mainstream politics to readily, openly, and officially absorb such values. This chapter discusses how, for most of the country’s history, Australian mainstream politicians suffocated the extreme right, not merely by borrowing some key ideas of the extreme right, but by negating entirely its ability to appear as an alternative to the power in place. It then turns to the 1990s and explores the rise of Hansonism and its impact on mainstream politics. The final part of the chapter is dedicated to the current state of radical right politics in Australia.

The Institute promotes Holocaust denial and (a very specialised form of) ‘historical revisionism’. Still carrying on like pork chops in April 2019, in May 2016, the Institute was apparently planning on republishing an edition of Mein Kampf with a German group. Among those associated with the Institute is veteran Kiwi agitator Kerry Bolton, who in March of this year avoided going to jail for naming a victim of sexual assault; he’s also been linked to the naughty young boys of the Wellington-based ‘Dominion Movement’, who in the wake of the massacre have gone into semi-hiding.

Note that a new website called Paparoa has recently emerged. It was launched on March 31, 2019, ‘primarily as a response to the horrific terrorist attacks on the Alnoor and Linwood Mosques in Christchurch’. The site is dedicated to monitoring, analysing, and responding to the far right in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Read An Introduction to the Organised Far Right in Aotearoa/NZ.

Anti-Antifa Australia (AAA)

A defunct blog and organising project which passed from Volksfront’s Chris Smith to the UPF’s Jim Perren to nazi crackpot Buddy Rojek. Much of this sort of activity is now being conducted by a range of others, including by way of XYZ (see below).

Antipodean Resistance (AR)

One of the newer kids on the neo-Nazi bloc, AR evolved on tumblr and made a splash in late 2016 when the lads plastered university campuses in homophobic propaganda. Modelled on National Action in the UK and Atomwaffen in the US, and closely associated with other boys on the AltRight in Melbourne, as predicted in December 2016, it did indeed obtain lots of ‘further publicity through staging similarly provocative stunts’ — at last count, something like 80 or more ‘actions’ have been staged since then, though the group’s webshite has been closed and their gab account has been inactive since late last year. See : Who are Antipodean Resistance? (August 2018 Update).

Aryan Nations (AN)

Since the last update, two members of AN in Perth, Wayne Edhouse and Melony Attwood, have been jailed for the murder of Alan Taylor. See : Neo-Nazi Aryan Nations lovers Robert Edhouse and Melony Attwood jailed for murder, Joanna Menagh, ABC, May 8, 2018. Note that the AN HQ was used by the UPF to announce the formation of their stillborn political party, ‘Fortitude’; other members of AN have carried on doing their nazi thing but — sneakily — have re-branded.

Australia First Party (AFP)

AFP is the largest and most well-established of the far-right groups, one dedicated inter alia to the resurrection of a White Australia policy. Founded in 1996 by former Labor MP Graeme Campbell, AFP is a registered political party and in 2016 the AEC also confirmed the Eureka flag as its official logo. Dr James Saleam is the party’s current leader, a position he assumed a few years after being let out of prison for organising a shotgun assault upon the home of Eddie Funde (then the African National Congress representative in Australasia). Previously, Saleam was the leader of neo-Nazi group National Action and in the late 1960s/early 1970s a member of the Australian Nazi Party. The party regularly contests elections, with generally meagre results, and its HQ is in Tempe in Sydney — where it has the largest following. Two AFP members have been elected to local council (Bruce Preece in Adelaide and Maurice Girotto in Penrith – both resigned their memberships following their elections). Saleam and other party members frequently post on Stormfront (the world’s leading neo-Nazi/White supremacist website) and occasionally on Daily Stormer (another US-based neo-Nazi site). In 2015, AFP absorbed the rump of the One Nation Party in WA.

April, 2019 : Saleam stood for the seat of Cootamundra at the 2019 NSW state election. At last count, the good doctor got 1% of the vote, and placed last of the six candidates contesting. Also in the news recently has been AFP member Nathan Sykes, editor-in-chief of the UNA blog (see below). Sykes has been ‘charged with multiple counts of using a carriage service to threaten serious harm, and with using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend’ (see : Right-wing troll to plead not guilty to threatening journalist, Angus Thompson, The Sydney Morning Herald, April 4, 2019). While a registered micro-party which has been active in promoting the white nationalist cause for decades, AFP has been effectively shunted aside by first Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party and now Fraser Anning’s Conservative Nationalists.

Australian Coalition of Nationalists (ACON)

The formation of the Australian Coalition of Nationalists was announced in October 2016, and consisted of the AFP, Australian Protectionist Party and Nationalist Alternative; the Eureka Youth League and the Hellenic Nationalists of Australia were considered ‘associate’ groups. The coalition represented an attempted reconsolidation of White nationalist and national socialist organisations in Australia, but failed to register as much more than a paper tiger, and this failure briefly triggered the inevitable round of recriminations which follow in the wake of such manouevres.

Australian Defence League (ADL)

The ADL formed within the space of a year following the establishment of the English Defence League in 2009. Gaining only a fraction of the support the EDL did, the ADL has undergone numerous splits, fractures and changes in leadership, but of those who’ve nominated themselves its leader Martin Brennan and Ralph Cerminara – along with Nathan Abela – are probably the best-known, along with Shermon Burgess (‘The Great Aussie Patriot’). There have been dozens of Facebook pages created by and for the ADL and it exists as a very loose network of anti-Muslim activists. Sporadic public rallies in Melbourne and Sydney have been poorly-attended but the group has been very active on social media. See : Who Are The Australian Defence League?, New Matilda, January 29, 2014.

As of December 2016, the ADL was a moribund institution, and remains so in April 2019. While Burgess has gone on to embrace neo-Nazism, Flat Earth theory, Odinism, and whichever other crackpottery registers in his fevered bRanes, Cerminara has been in serious trouble with the law, and earlier this year was sentenced to jail for assaulting a neighbour. In good news for Cerminara, he was released on appeal, and — irony of ironies — has apparently successfully applied for legal support from the Aboriginal Legal Service in NSW to aid in his efforts to free himself from the politically-correct courts. (Note that there remains at least one ADL page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pg/AustralianDefenceLeagueOfficialAdlEst2009), one of thousands of similar pages pumping out an endless stream of anti-Muslim propaganda. Oddly, while three admins are based in Australia, two are in the UK and one in the US.)

Australian League of Rights (ALOR)

The Grand Old Man of Australian fascism, the ALOR has been around for a very long time, successfully defending God, Queen & Country from the ravages of International Communism. The group’s weekly newsletter may be read online and is useful for gaining some insight into the ‘Lunar Right’ and the many … er … ‘interesting’ characters which populate its ranks. April 2019 : ALOR remains largely inactive outside of publishing tracts for its diminishing number of followers, but in its heyday did reach a much larger audience. See : The many careers of Twiggy Forrest, Ramon Glazov, The Monthly, July 2013.

Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA)

A creation of the Q Society (see below), the ALA was formally registered with the AEC in July 2015. Modelled on Geert Wilders’ Dutch party — Wilders attended the ALA’s official launch in Perth in October 2015 — it fielded a number of candidates at the 2016 federal election but failed to attract much support, with the anti-Muslim vote largely being attracted to ONP. In September 2016 the ALA announced it would be going into a temporary hiatus.

April 2019 : The ALA has resurfaced on occasion in order to contest elections — most recently at last year’s Victorian state election — but has failed dismally each time. Its star candidate last year was Melbourne-based serial pest Avi Yemini, whose batshit antics have gained him a considerable social media following, a platform alongside Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and the financial support of Rebel Media in Canada, but little else of note. Otherwise, while the Arcadia Hotel in South Yarra has emerged as a key hub of support and venue for the ALA’s activities, and its base is among older professionals, so Badly has the ALA performed that earlier this year it applied to change its name to ‘Yellow Vest Australia’. Whether or not this re-branding was a serious attempt to crib from the French movement or simply a terrible joke is of course unknown at this stage.

Australian Patriots Defence Movement (APDM)

Still deaded.

Australian Protectionist Party (APP)

The APP formed as a split from AFP in 2007 when one of its Sydney branches – the two most prominent members of which were Nicholas (Hunter) Folkes and Darrin Hodges – elected to defect. It was active for a few years, producing propaganda and holding events, but is now largely moribund. Tasmanian Andrew Phillips is its leader. Hodges has retired from political activity while Folkes split from the APP to form the Party for Freedom (see below). April 2019 : The APP continues to maintain an online presence, but remains politically-moribund.

Australian Settlers Rebellion (ASR)

In essence, one of the Facebook pages of Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson. April 2019 : Not long after its launch in 2016, ASR became ‘Nationalist Uprising’, but like ASR was chiefly a vehicle for the antics and propaganda of serial pest Erikson, and one of numerous social media platforms he used to publicise his activities. At its peak the page had over 70,000 followers but it was deleted in the wake of the Christchurch massacre. See also : ARN, EARL, NRG, Cooks Convicts, Patriot Blue, Aussie Patriot Army, Ban Islam Party, Generation Identity Australia, Neil Erikson Media, NRG Media, OzConspiracy, Pauline Hanson’s Guardian Angels and United Patriots Front — Originals.

Australians Resistance Network (ARN)

Originally established by Erikson as ‘Generation Identity Australia’, ARN is one of many Facebook pages dedicated to anti-Muslim, anti-leftist and White nationalist propaganda. Almost three-and-a-half years after it was first published, ARN continues to grind out the usual, but like others its current admins are paranoid that it may fall foul of Facebook’s new regime/AI tools, and thus be deleted.

Battalion88

One of dozens of short-lived neo-Nazi groupuscules, now deaded.

Blood & Honour (B&H)

B&H is a neo-Nazi musical network, originally established in England in the late 1980s, and has been operating in Australia for over 25 years. Activities are generally confined to selling neo-Nazi muzak and merch (via 9% Productions) and holding gigs. It functions essentially as an adjunct to the SCHS (see below). April 2019 : Last year, veteran Aussie reich ‘n’ rollers Fortress reformed, recorded a new album, and toured Europe, playing to thousands of neo-Nazis.

Christian Identity (CI)

CI is a tiny sect on the fringes of the far right with a handful of adherents and a minuscule social media presence. One, James Lawrence, popped up at the May 31, 2015 UPF rally and attended subsequent nationalist rallies. According to the ECAJ (Report on Antisemitism in Australia 2016): Christian Identity churches, unlike almost all other denominations of Christianity, place the concepts of race and racial purity high on their priorities. They are expressly anti-Jewish from a medieval Christian theological perspective. There are several Identity type churches. The one with the most prolific and popular website is Bible Believers. In April 2019, advocates of CI presumably continue to eke out an existence, while Lawrence has reportedly been in and out of hospital with various mental health issues.

Christian Separatist

A tiny, bizarr0 White supremacist kvlt. ‘Pastor’ Ken Cratchley is its chief propagandist in Australia. Last year, Cratchley re-emerged as a supporter of The Lads Society (see below) in Sydney.

Citizens Electoral Council (CEC)

The CEC is the name under which the LaRouchite kvlt travels Down Under. Seemingly most active in Melbourne, the group presents a range of entertainingly batshit theories about the world Lyndon LaRouche inhabits. It contested the 2016 Australian federal election and gathered a tiny fraction of votes. In April 2019, the CEC has been robbed of its leader, Lyndon LaRouche, who died in February this year.

Combat 18 (C18)

C18 is another foreign import, having its origins in England in the late 1980s. The group was established in order to protect B&H gigs and other fascist events from disruption by anti-fascists and has a rather bloody history. It’s widely suspected that it was infiltrated by British intelligence on account of the close relationship between C18 and Ulster paramilitaries. In Australia, the ‘brand’ has been adopted by a number of different neo-Nazis including in WA, where C18 was responsible for a poorly-executed attack upon a mosque (see Bradley Trappitt). AFAIK, its only active ‘branch’ currently is in Melbourne under Patrick O’Sullivan. As of December 2016, O’Sullivan seems to have been joined by a handful of others, media has reported on various instances of C18 propaganda appearing around Melbourne and several boneheads in the orbit of C18 have attended various nationalist rallies during the course of 2015–2016. April 2019 : C18 continues to produce and distribute shitty B&W stickers, chiefly in Melbourne but also Sydney and other towns and cities, thereby occasionally generating local media reportage, and boneheads across the country still invoke its name.

*Conservative Nationals (CN)

A newly-formed (March 2019) political party and vehicle for Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning. More on CN at a later date.

Creativity

A bizarre, White supremacist ‘religion’ established in the US some decades ago. It’s undergone numerous, often violent splits: its main exponent in Australia is Colin Campbell/Cailen Cambeul (Adelaide) and Patrick O’Sullivan (Melbourne). Scott Harrison was a ‘Reverend’ in the ‘church’ for many years before joining the Young Liberals. April 2019 : To the best of my knowledge, O’Sullivan has swapped Creativity for Combat 18. As for Campbell/Cambeul he was ‘Pontifex Maximus’ of one wing of the movement until 2016, and in 2017 became a ‘Church Administrator’. (In February 2017, Cambeul got a guernsey in this article about a very Creative lad in Georgia who got caught playing with ricin.)

*The Dingoes

The Dingoes is the name adopted by a smol number of chiefly Sydney-based neo-Nazis in order to produce a podcast called ‘The Convict Report’. The Report has attracted the participation of a wide array of white nationalists, AlRightists and other racist cranks, most notoriously QLD LNP MP George Christensen (whoops) and newly-elected PHONy Senator and ex-ALP Prime Ministerial candidate Mark Latham. The Dingoes were present on Twitter employing the hashtag #DingoTwitter and were reasonably-successful in having their bon mots shared by ABC’s TV show Q&A. Following the Christchurch massacre, The Dingoes have gone a bit quiet (their Facebook page and Twitter account are down and their site is offline), but are otherwise active in the networks which infiltrated the Young Nationals in NSW last year and which are currently taking advantage of Fraser Anning’s considerable social media presence to shitpost on Facebook and Twitter to an audience of tens of thousands.

The example used in this article of the trolling/ 4chan approach, set up in Australia during the US Presidential elections, is a project of a group calling itself TheDingoes. Perched on a service provided by .xyz (a new service platform that hosts many thousands of clients), TheDingoes exemplifies all the various elements of state of the art antisemitic and racist online presence; Buzzfeed reported that the founders of the TheDingoes were intentionally using as wide a range of social media as they could, skirting rules and testing boundaries, in order to normalise racist hate speech. Typically the members remain disguised behind pseudonyms and delight in their anonymity, particularly the opportunity it gives them to ‘bant’ (banter).

Their use of the .xyz demonstrates a close knowledge of Internet trends. The .xyz domain name was released to the general public in mid-2014, as part of a refreshing by ICANN of generic top-level domain names. Google adopted it for its corporate Alphabet site, (abc.xyz), and by June 2016 it was the fourth most registered top level global domain name after.com, .net and .org. The name is managed by a company called Generation XYZ, (http://gen.xyz), which describes itself as ‘a global community inspired by the Internet and its limitless potential… to connect with the world in a whole new way… you can focus on connecting with your audience anywhere in the world’. It represents a further layer of defence for users, from any retributive pursuit by people they harass.

TheDingoes appeared online in 2016, their website registered in January, followed up with a Twitter account in June. A number of the people associated with the group also joined about that time, including one tweeter whose display image contained the anti-immigration slogan ‘Fuck Off, We’re Full’. TheDingoes (once the name of a 1970s Australian music band that left for the US) described itself as ‘#AltRight, but not in the way that violates #Rule1’. Here they refer to Rule1, that is the 4chan /b/ rule 1, ‘Do not talk about /b/’ (which is also rule 2). /b/ is the general posting board for 4 Chan users. They also have ‘88’ on their page, which stands for the initials ‘HH’, a code for ‘Heil Hitler’. As of February 2017, TheDingoes had 1,461 followers online, had posted 3,640 posts, garnered 5,507 likes, and was following 442 other Tweeters; by September 2017 it had grown to 2,146 followers (gaining about 100 followers a month), with 4,615 Tweets and 7,500 likes, though it had abandoned some of its followed friends (down to 420). The site followed a range of micro-nationalist groups, a raft of conservative online commentators and some ‘lulz’ (Laugh Out Loud plural) antisemitic posters, such as one identifying as ‘Goys just want to have fun’, and another as ‘Dachau Blues’, backed by an image of the Auschwitz ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ sign…

Eureka Youth League (EYL)

The EYL is AFP’s putative youth wing and its ideology mirrors that of the AFP. It’s largely inactive, and is currently presided over by (and may only consist of) a right-wing youth from Canberra, Matthew Grant. Grant is a Presbyterian, a White nationalist, an anti-Semite, and spoke at an anti-Muslim rally in Bendigo in October 2015. April 2019 : The EYL continues to exist. Presumably. According to Grant, writing on his personal website: The Eureka Youth League is a nation-wide network of fraternal organisations for young, white men in Australia. We have chapters in Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and smaller groups around regional New South Wales. My main goal in forming this organisation was to organise the traditionalist, nationalist [C]hristian youth of the country into private and safe social circles in which they can come together for moral, financial and emotional self-improvement.See also : The New Guard.

European Australian Civil Rights League (EARL)

One of dozens of online handles employed by Neil Erikson, in April 2019 EARL remains defunct, though leaves behind a blog (January–April 2013) and Twitter account (last tweet March 1, 2015).

Expel the Parasite

A neo-Nazi website run by 30-something South Australian Brett Light. Light identifies with Christian Identity and there are no prizes for guessing who he believes the ‘parasites’ are. As of April 2019, the site is still up and in its last update (August 2018) Mister Light thrilled to Fraser Anning’s maiden speech to federal parliament, republishing it in full.

Golden Dawn is the Australian branch of the Greek neo-Nazi party. Its chief spokesperson in Australia is Iggy Gavrilidis while other organisers include Christos Cakouros in Adelaide, Christina Tsimtsirids and Sofia Krokos in Melbourne, Elias Vamiakis in Sydney, Peter Poulos in Queensland and Nikolaos Mitsakis in Tasmania. GD has a very small support base, chiefly concentrated in Melbourne and Sydney, and over the last few years has raised funds for its parent body and organised a handful of protests in conjunction with AFP and a smattering of local neo-Nazis and fascists. In December 2015, GD registered in NSW as an incorporated association named Hellenic Nationalists of Australia. GD held its first national conference in Sydney on October 28, 2016 at which over a hundred supporters attended along with Saleam of AFP and a handful of Russian fascists. April 2019 : The trial in Greece of GD as a criminal organisation drags on, while in Australia, GD continues to do its thing. See also : No to Golden Dawn in Melbourne.

Klub Nation/Klub Naziya

A bizarr0 groupuscule based in Sydney. At one point KN attempted to infiltrate and take over the Humanist Society of NSW. It didn’t work, but the nazis had a red-hot go. Presumably, its membership continues to be active but not publicly. April 2019 : KN carries on in various guises, and continues to battle its rivals in Sydney in the AFP, including by way of a legal complaint lodged with the blog UNA (see below).

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

With an obvious indebtedness to the US, in numerous, generally short-lived permutations and combinations, the KKK has been a minor player on the far right for decades. In one form or another, it continues to generate occasional stories and the image of the KKK is regularly invoked in various rural and regional settings, but the organisation itself is largely moribund. April 2019 : The KKK in Australia remains a spectral figure.

*The Lads Society (TLS)

The Lads Society is basically what the UPF (see below) became after it collapsed in 2017. It announced its existence by way of the establishment of a clubhouse/social centre in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham in September 2017, which was the site of a joint meeting in January 2018 with members of the Bendigo- and Melton-based TBC (and others) in order to discuss the formation of a vigilante group to tackle African yoof (crimens). In 2018, TLS opened another centre in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield, and apparently has plans to open similar centres in other major cities. Those involved in the TLS include Blair Cottrell, Tom Sewell, James Buckle, Jacob Hersant, Mark McDonald, Stuart von Moger and others who for the time being will remain nameless. Members of TLS were hired by Dave Pellowe to provide security for the 2018 tour by Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern, worked the March for the Babies in Melbourne in October 2018 and also participated in AltLight personality Sydney Watson’s March for Men in August 2018. The antics of some nazi Lads in Brisbane has caused Cottrell some headaches — The (neo-Nazi) Lads Society : Blair Cottrell’s pro-tip : Wear Your Swastikas On The Inside — and there’s no love lost bewteen the Lads and AFP/UNA’s Nathan Sykes (see : Tom Sewell & The Lads Society ~versus~ Nathan Sykes & The Australia First Party).

The creation of TV personality Kim Vuga (Go Back To Where You Come From, SBS), the party achieved registration in October 2016. Vuga attended and spoke at many nationalist rallies in 2015-2016. Contesting the 2016 federal election as a Senate candidate in Queensland, Vuga received 172 votes (0.01%). While blessed with an xclnt name, LAOL is unlikely to challenge ONP for hegemony over the (White) nationalist vote. April 2019 : Vuga and LAOL persists, though why is anybody’s guess. See also : Apology for Labor MP Anne Aly over ‘fake’ Anzac Day claims, Rashida Yosufzai, SBS, April 29, 2017.

Nationalist Alternative (NAlt)

NAlt is a neo-Nazi group which has its origins in anti-Muslim agitation in Melbourne. Its leader is Mark Hootsen, who has travelled to the US in order to receive political training with Stormfront. NAlt was present at the April 4 Reclaim Australia rally in Melbourne. As of December 2016 its activities are largely confined to the keyboard, though the group can boast of having produced figures such as Blair Cottrell and Thomas Sewell of the UPF (see below) and Neil Erikson. April 2019 : NAlt continues to function, albeit with little real impact.

National Democratic Party of Australia (NDPA)

NDPA was launched by UPF activist Blair Cottrell following the April 4 Reclaim Australia rally. Based in Melbourne, the group is tiny and as of December 2016 inactive. April 2019 : The NDPA remains defunct, though Cottrell attempted to manufacture another political vehicle for himself called ‘Fortitude’, which similarly crashed and burned.

Nationalist Republican Guard (NRG)

NRG was EARL rebranded and from the beginning of 2015 worked closely with Reclaim Australia, UPF and Shermon Burgess in order to produce agitprop promoting these groups and individuals. One of dozens of labels Erikson has adopted then dropped.

*The New Guard (NG)

An online organising hub, principally on Facebook, for various white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and other AltRight odds & sods. The NG came to prominence largely by way of the exposure of its role in facilitating an infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW last year, but remains active behind-the-scenes in a number of other, similar political institutions. The ABC has uncovered a covert plot by Australia’s alt-right movement to join major political parties and influence their policy agendas from within. Background Briefing has witnessed members of the NSW Young Nationals in Sydney attending a secret men’s-only fight club set up by some of the country’s most prominent alt-right nationalists. The program has also gained access to a private Facebook group in which these same people discuss their manifesto, which includes plans to shake up mainstream politics. The group is called The New Guard and its followers are self-described fascists.See : Manifesto reveals alt-right’s plans to go mainstream after ‘infiltration’ of NSW Young Nationals, Alex Mann, Background Briefing (ABC), October 14, 2018 | Neo-Nazi infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW (October 11, 2018).

New Right (/National Anarchists) (NR)

The New Right emerged in the mid- to late-2000s as a project of Sydney-based fascist Welf Herfurth – Herfurth envisaged NR as the theoretical expression of ‘national anarchism’, a tendency on the far-right with origins in the UK fascist movement. It has produced some propaganda, staged a few publicity stunts, and attracted a handful of neo-Nazis (eg, Bradley Trappitt) and other fascists to its banner but is currently largely inactive. As of December 2016, it remains a dead horse in Australia. April 2019 : A wealthy gadabout, Herfurth continues to criss-cross the globe, network with fellow cranks, and fail to create much enthusiasm for his idiotic syncretism.

One Nation Party (ONP)

See : Pauline Hanson. Initially a deeply attractive formation for the far right, the history of ONP since the late ’90s is long and complex (see : Danny Ben-Moshe, ‘One Nation and the Australian far right’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol.35, No.3, 2001). Its activists belong to a broader far-right milieu, with some degree of overlap with groups like AFP. The possibility of a reconsolidation of the far right in AFP remains, though is somewhat complicated by Hanson’s periodic political revivals. ONP’s success at the 2016 federal election, when it won four Senate seats — Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts (QLD), Brian Burston (NSW) and Rod Culleton (WA) — has helped revive its fortunes. By the same token, ONP’s success has meant failure for the ALA, and ONP is now the primary expression of politically-organised anti-Muslim sentiment. Finally, despite a deserved reputation for harbouring anti-Semites, ONP was invited to hold a meeting in Caulfield (Melbourne) in December 2016. In the face of local Jewish opposition, the two Senators invited to speak — Pauline Hanson and Malcolm ‘Jew World Order’ Roberts — elected to cancel the circus.

April 2019 : Much has happened to ONP since December 2016. Among other things, of the four Senators bumped into parliament at the 2016 federal election, only Hanson remains in place, with Roberts replaced (November 2017) by Fraser Anning, who then left to join Katter’s Australian Party, left KAP to sit as an independent, and has now formed his own party, the Conservative Nationals. Burston quit the party in June 2018 to join Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, while Culleton was disqualified in February 2017 and replaced by his brother-in-law Peter Georgiou in March 2017. ONP has also won seats (2017–) in state parliaments: Stephen Andrew in the lower house seat of Mirani in QLD, three upper house seats in WA (Robin Scott, Charles Smith & Colin Tincknell) and most recently gained another in NSW, occupied by the the former federal Labor leader Mark Latham (2019–). The success of ONP is generally read as a failure of the Nationals, and presents particular problems for them in their regional and rural heartlands. Apart, perhaps, from running a nominally Muslim woman, Emma Eros, for a seat at the NSW state election (Eros received 2,250 votes or 4.5%), nothing Hanson or ONP does or says dissuades her fanbase from continuing to support her. See also : How To Sell A Massacre, Al Jazeera, March 2019.

Party for Freedom (PFF)

Modelled on Geert Wilders’ Dutch party, PFF is what happened when the Sydney branch of APP decided to hold a public rally in mid-2012 demanding that the Australian government blow up refugee boats. APP disavowed the action and so the Sydney branch of APP decamped to form PFF. It holds regular events in Sydney but has little discernible support outside of it. Is chief and seemingly only spokesperson is Nicholas (Hunter) Folkes, a publicity whore who delights in provocative stunts (see : Cronulla). In April 2016 the PFF travelled to Melbourne to protest outside a halal expo and got a clip around their ears for their troubles; in November 2016 they returned to Melbourne and the suburb of Eltham to protest a refugee housing project. Joined by the SOO and TBC (see below) they were again defeated by a combination of butterflies and unicorns.

In April 2019, the PFF is largely defunct, after Folkes was diagnosed with cancer and decided that his energies would be better directed at staying alive (by inter alia adopting a vegan diet). Between December 2016 and its collapse a year or so later, the PFF distinguished itself by way of organising an anti-antifa demo in Newtown in May 2017, a homophobic rally at the LGBT Holocaust Memorial in Sydney in September 2017 and various other daft stunts. A few weeks ago, Folkes failed to attend a tribunal hearing in Queensland, where it’s alleged that he and the PFF produced propaganda which ‘equated same-sex marriage with child abuse’ (Far-right group accused of hate speech fails to appear at Queensland tribunal, Ben Smee, The Guardian, March 26, 2019). Along with this minor legal difficulty, the PFF also produced a short-lived group called ‘Australian Patriots Uprising’, which was openly neo-Nazi, and organised a tiny rally in Canberra in August 2018 which featured Shermon Burgess as a riveting guest speaker.

Patriotic Youth League (PYL)

The PYL was established in the early 2000s as the yoof wing of AFP. It was not a successful venture and collapsed a few years later to be replaced by the EYL. Andrew Wilson — now attached to Anning — was involved in the PYL.

Patriots Defence League of Australia (PDLA)

An ADL splinter, the PDLA is largely a Facebook creation, with numerous, very small branches across the country which hold semi-regular, private meetings. In its latest incarnation, the PDLA was established as an incorporated association (Australian Defence League) which later changed its name to PDLA. Mark Lenthall, TJ (Torin) O’Brien and Daniel Sutcliffe were its office bearers. Also prominent is John Oliver of Newcastle, who helped organise and spoke at the Reclaim Australia rally in Newcastle on April 4. In November 2016 its Melbourne organiser, Shannon Wallace, deaded. April 2019 : The PDLA continue to maintain a Facebook page, but otherwise would appear to be inactive.

*Proud Boys (Australia)

The Australian franchise of the US-based gang established by Gavin McInnes. PBs rocked up to Anning’s rally in St Kilda in January and to his meeting in Moorabbin last month, attended the tours by Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern and Milo Yiannopoulos in 2017–2018, and are otherwise active (or claim to be) in NSW, QLD, SA and WA. The Boys defend Western Civilisation by not reading and going to the gym. In October 2018, following the arrest of several PBs in New York on assault charges, Facebook decided to remove PB pages from its site, and it’s unclear if the network will recover. Currently, its chief propagandist in Australia is a bloke from Sydney called Nicholas Stone.

Q Society

The Q Society is an anti-Muslim propaganda group which functions as the ideological ballast for the anti-Muslim movement in Australia and largely consists of educated, middle class, bigots. See : International guests Q up for bigotry, Andy Fleming, Overland, March 10, 2014. April 2019 : The Society continues to trundle along, in February 2017 organising a gathering at Victoria University, and otherwise keeping the dream of an Australia cleansed of Muslims alive in the hearts of its elderly supporters. (Also at about the time of the conference, which featured the talents of George Christensen, the Society settled a legal matter with halal certfier Mohamed El-Mouelhy. See : Victory Against Anti-Islam Group: An Interview with Halal Certification Authority Director Mohamed El-Mouelhy, Paul Gregoire, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, March 2, 2017.)

Reclaim Australia (RA)

Largely the brainchild of online activist and (former) ADL member Shermon Burgess (‘The Great Aussie Patriot’), RA was the first anti-Muslim project of its kind to generate anything more than minimal public interest and to successfully mobilise anti-Muslim networks. Its April 4, 2015 rallies attracted several thousand supporters who attended over a dozen rallies across the country — to which the largest and most effective opposition was in Melbourne. Following April 4, RA split and Burgess established the UPF (see below). RA’s next series of anti-Muslim rallies took place on the weekend of July 18/19 while a third and final round of protests organised by RA took place in November 2015. In general terms, RA attracted every Tom, Dick & Harry ‘patriot’, (White) nationalist, racist, fascist, neo-Nazi and xenophobe in the country, but experienced a good deal of internal difficulties, with a rump faction led by John Oliver eventually going on to establish itself as an incorporated association in NSW in January 2016. April 2019 : Like others, RA has experienced various twists and turns, splits and stoopid, but while street mobilisations have ceased since early 2017, it continues to pump out propaganda on Facebook, with former UPF star Scott Moerland being one of the more active voices.

Restore Australia

Another one-man band, Restore Australia was the political vehicle of Queensland-based anti-Muslim activist Mike Holt. Holt/Restore Australia is part of a shifting network of anti-Muslim activists, largely active online on sites like Facebook.

April 2019 : Holt continues being a right-wing blabbermouth, only now wearing a hat called ‘Citizens Initiated Referendums Now’ AKA ‘Foundation for National Renewal’ AKA ‘Advance Australia HQ Pty Ltd’ (2017–). He played a leading role in providing direction to a short-lived Australian version of the Yellow Vests in early 2019 (which was mostly composed of the sorts of folks who attended Reclaim Australia events in 2015 and expressed similar concerns about immigration and the United Nations). He’s also championed the cause of accused terrorist Phil Galea. According to Holt: Phil Galea, Australian patriot, was arrested and accused of being a terrorist in August 2016 after he followed and filmed ANTIFA terrorist thugs at their headquarters; a ‘TrueBlue Observer’ on his website writes (Why Phil Galea was Arrested, October 25, 2018): One of Phil’s aims was to expose these corrupt people and groups. As part of his work he followed ANTIFA members and filmed their meetings at coffee shops and other places around Melbourne. He also recorded every encounter between the Andrew’s Socialist Government and ANTIFA…the same people who constantly turn up at any patriot rally to bash them up as the police look on without arresting them. Holt is batshit, but mostly harmless.

RUAP is the political vehicle of Christian fundamentalist Pastor Danny Nalliah (‘Catch the Fire Ministeries’), a man who is perhaps best known for blaming the Victorian bushfires of 2009 on the state government’s decision to decriminalise abortion. In 2015, RUAP entered into a loose alliance first with RA and then the UPF, the Christian fundamentalists happily joining neo-Nazis on stage to promote hatred of Muslims and refugees. Other than Nalliah, deputy leader and Casey councillor Rosalie Crestani has been very active in promoting bigotry (see : Rosalie Crestani really is deplorable, Kieran’s Review, November 28, 2016). April 2019 : RUAP’s ambitions to establish itself on a national level received a blow when, in January 2017, CTF was stripped of its ‘charity’ status, but Crestani is now deputy mayor for Casey, and the council has been effective in preventing the construction of a mosque in the area (see : Expired permit leaves mosque plans in City of Casey on hold, Rachel Eddie, The New Daily, January 21, 2019).

Soldiers of Odin (SOO)

Founded by Finnish neo-Nazi activist Mika Ranta in late 2015, the Soldiers of Odin formed a branch in Melbourne in early 2016 and the organisation claims support in a number of other cities, though none seem to be especially active. Its President is Jason Moore, a former activist with the PDLA. See also : Who are the Soldiers of Odin?, Kieran’s Review, October 10, 2016. April 2019 : SOO has been an active presence at various patriotik rallies in Melbourne since 2016, including the Anning rally in St Kilda in January this year, but does not seem to have grown much, and is currently simply one of hundreds of Facebook propaganda outlets. (One of its members, Garry Mattsson, got a slap on the wrist after being found guilty of being naughty at the Milo stoopid in December 2017.)

Southern Cross Hammerskins (SCHS)

SCHS is the Australian franchise of neo-Nazi skinhead gang the Hammerskins. It was introduced into Australia 20+ years ago via Scott McGuinness, the lead singer in neo-Nazi band Fortress, which has recently reformed to record a new album and tour Australia and Europe. The Hammerskins last came to world attention when in 2012 one of its members, Wade Michael Page, shot dead six worshippers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The SCHS organises several social events a year. April 2019 : SCHS keeps on keeping on.

Southern Cross Soldiers (SCS)

A short-lived yoof gang from Melbourne which came to public attention following the police killing of Tyler Cassidy in 2008. The name of the group was re-invoked by Shermon Burgess in 2015 as a supporter of the UPF but as of December 2016 it remains deaded.

Squadron 88 (S88)

S88 was a tiny neo-Nazi group based in Sydney. Its titular head was Ross ‘The Skull’ May, an ageing bonehead and one of Dr Jim Saleam’s closest allies. S88 organised a protest against the construction of a mosque in Penrith and obtained some small media traction via stuffing letterboxes in Sydney with badly-composed anti-Semitic tracts. April 2019 : While S88 remains — alongside their hero Mister Hitler — in the grave, its fuehrer Mark McDonald has re-invented himself as a key organiser with TLS in Sydney.

True Blue Crew (TBC)

The True Blue Crew formed during late 2015 and early 2016, largely in response to anti-Muslim campaigns in Bendigo and Melton. Building upon pre-existing social networks, the TBC made its formal debut in Coburg in May 2016, where it attempted but failed to disrupt an ‘anti-racist’ rally. It organised two further rallies — a flag-waving event in Melbourne in June and an anti-Muslim rally in Melton in August — but most recently has been subject to internal dissent following the conviction of several of its members for ‘domestic violence’ and allegations of abuse and financial impropriety by its leader, Kane Miller. Its most infamous supporter is alleged ‘terrorist’ Phill Galea. See also : Galea intended to bomb “left wing premises” according to police, Kieran’s Review, November 1, 2016. April 2019 : The TBC has remained active in VIC while also recruiting supporters in NSW, QLD, SA and WA. In 2017, it organised a flagwit parade thru Melbourne, and again in 2018; its NSW chapter organised one in Sydney in 2018, and is planning to march again in 2019. Unfortunately for TBC, its pages have been deleted by Facebook, presumably on account of the expressed support given it by the Christchurch killer. In any event, Tom Tanuki provided this pithy summary of TBC lvl boss Kane Miller — who popped up at Anning’s rally in St Kilda in January in the company of some meathead with an SS helmet — back in 2018:

The TBC were formed after a few of their original core crew got into a scrap with some Antifa kids after a 2015 rally. ‘Never again,’ they said! So, the TBC were originally meant to be a patriot answer to black bloc Anteefa contingents.

Their red letter day came in May 2016, when they took part in an organised attempt to have the far-right march through Coburg. Their brief, televised fights with masked lefties were a big popularity boost for them. TBC started charging membership fees – $20 a week, $10 for ‘casual’ members. At one point, they were earning tens of thousands of dollars in just a few months! The money was being managed by TBC ‘President’ Kane Miller’s partner and her sister and all of that money was going to Kane. He was largely spending it as he liked.

Behind closed doors, the ‘President’ was abusing his partner. He even broke her back. He wasn’t the only woman-bashing TBC member, either – and when photographic evidence of another member’s brutal assault on his wife was made public, Kane avoided the increasing media spotlight on TBC by kicking Mark out. Members knew that decision made Kane a bit of a hypocrite, for the abovementioned reasons… So they started leaving the TBC. Kane’s abused partner finally left him too and the money management side of TBC went down the drain. The things she revealed about the abuse meant even more TBC members left the group – and they took their membership fees with them.

Kane went quiet for a long while, feeling defeated. TBC ‘club meetings’ dwindled after a time to little more than 12 unemployed blokes sitting around sucking cones in Kane’s mum’s living room. But the lure of conning working class Aussies out of their hard-earned wages still called to Kane. So TBC returned somewhat with an Australia Day BBQ in St Kilda (a genius idea he came up with after a sesh watching the new Romper Stomper). And he had some stupid fucking idea to wander around parks with a bunch of other losers looking for Sudanese children to fight. A meeting he held at Tom Sewell’s Cheltenham clubhouse was televised, with Channel 7 airing a description of the TBC’s initiative as being ‘like a Neighbourhood Watch’ – and it seemed to the world like the TBC were back!

It was not like a Neighbourhood Watch. It was just more hare-brained, shard-addled fantasy garbage from a man who was desperate to be given more membership fees to enjoy himself with. He says it’s for a ‘clubhouse’ but it isn’t and it never will be. TBC only have about 5-10 people contributing membership fees and they get most of their cash from merch. It’s not enough. Kane just wants to siphon more money out from poor, angry, confused Aussies.

That money won’t do anything but fund the TBC ‘President’ and his lifestyle. This is a man who gets cash-in-hand from his Muslim boss (serious!) and has membership fees go into his mates’ bank account so child support can’t take it. This is a man with convictions for domestic violence (he was also violent to his last ex, who also dumped him), multiple AVO breaches and firearms charges who won’t pay for his own child. Money given to TBC is fleeced money, and it pays for a shit fucking dude.

The UAF was a new player on the far right bloc in July 2015, bringing together a number of the leading organisers of RA and UPF. Its members were present at the RA rally on April 4 and UPF rally on May 31 in Melbourne sporting UAF merch. The establishment of the UAF was largely the responsibility of UPF member Kris0 Richardson; the UAF was eclipsed by the emergence of the UPF when it formed in early- to mid- 2015. Around mid-2016, the UAF Facebook page re-badged itself as ‘Order 15’ and now promotes neo-Nazism and White supremacism. (Richardson states that he is no longer responsible for the page.)

United Patriots Front (UPF)

Established in April/May 2015, the United Patriots Front emerged as a splinter group within the network of anti-Muslim activists known as ‘Reclaim Australia’, bringing together neo-Nazis, fascists, White supremacists and Christian fundamentalists, and conceiving of itself as the Antipodean expression of various European fascist parties and movements. It organised an unsuccessful rally in Richmond on May 31, 2015 to protest socialism which attracted around 50-70 participants. On June 27 2015, the UPF staged a tiny rally outside ABC HQ in Melbourne to protest Islam and the presence of Zaky Mallah on the previous week’s episode of Q&A. Members present were Troy Bloodstone, Warren Broadhead, Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson, Kris0 Richardson, Chris Shortis, Thomas Sewell and Linden Watson.

Since then, the UPF has staged a number of other media stunts, harassed left-wing activists and institutions, and organised a number of rallies. While the group’s Facebook page has a relatively large number of likes (as of this date, over 83,000), in terms of its mobilising capacity it seems to have peaked in late 2015, when two anti-Muslim rallies in Bendigo in August and October attracted many hundreds of supporters. In February 2016, the UPF embarked upon a tour of Toowoomba (QLD), Orange (NSW) and Bendigo (VIC) in order to recruit members to its political party, ‘Fortitude’. The tour failed to attract sufficient interest and members and the party remains stillborn.

Subject to many ups and downs over the course of its existence, the UPF in Melbourne is now largely reduced to its neo-Nazi leader, Blair Cottrell, his sidekick, Thomas Sewell, and a small number of hangers-on. It also has a presence in Perth, where Dennis Huts and Kevin Coombes (AKA ‘Elijah Jacobson’) constitute its leadership. Formerly prominent UPF members Shermon Burgess, Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis have all left the organisation, Burgess and Erikson currently constituting the ASR with Shortis joining the Australia First Party in mid-2016. Following a daft publicity stunt in Bendigo in late 2015, in September 2017, Cottrell, Erikson and Shortis were found guilty of inciting hatred for Muslims; Cottrell is appealing the conviction, and returns to the County Court in June for a directions hearing. Note that after his Facebook ban, Cottrell transferred his attention to Twitter, but was removed from the site just a few days before the Christchurch massacre, and has now joined all the other nazis on gab.

A blog and Facebook page that has taken on the functions of the defunct AAA and WLT (see below) blog and Facebook pages. Closely-aligned to AFP, it features the writings of AFP member and Daily Stormer writer Nathan Sykes (AKA ‘Hamish Patton’) and a handful of others. April 2019 : While UNA maintains a Facebook page, its wordpress blog was deleted after the massacre and Sykes is on trial for allegedly issuing threats over the intarwebs (he’s also declared that UNA will return in some unspecified form at a later date).

*The Unshackled (TU)

The Unshackled is a propaganda outlet for the AltRight and AltLight which over time has increasingly favoured the former. Its chief editor is Tim Wilms, an advocate of inter alia Right Wing Death Squads. The site has included contributions by and offered a platform to various others, including a number drawn from other groups and projects featured here. Established in September 2016, Wilms described TU as being ‘Australia’s leading battlefront against the regressive left, social justice warriors and political correctness’, though that honour could more justifiably be bestowed upon Sky News and Newscorpse. Operating out of an office in Oakleigh South, as Tasman News Media Pty. Ltd. Wilms is also producing merch (as ‘Upright Market’) and offering commercial services (as ‘Box Media Studios’). His political background is with the reactionary, right-wing Liberal Democrats micro-party. Thus in 2014 Wilms was the Victorian state treasurer for the LDP, a candidate for the party in the race for a Senate seat at the 2013 federal election (he and his running mate Peter Whelan scored a total of 363 votes, or 0.01%), and he campaigned for the seat of Dunkley at the 2016 state election, gaining 1,037 votes (1.16%).

When it was first launched, TU was the joint effort of Wilms and Sydney student Sukith Fernando, but unfortunately Fernando was dropped not long after it was revealed he was a Holocaust denialist. Among those to have recently joined Tim on the site is independent filmmaker, AltRight activist and self-described fascist Richard Wolstencroft. Wolstencroft got into some troubles in 2017 for a homophobic diatribe, and temporarily relinquished his role as fuehrer of his ‘Melbourne Underground Film Festival’ (MUFF) as a result. Happily, the yuppies who love MUFF are a forgiving lot, and he was soon back on top. Note that the principal venue for last year’s MUFF also served as the venue for Anning’s meeting in March, the same one at which #eggboy made his sensational appearance.

Volksfront (VF)

VF is (was) another neo-Nazi skinhead organisation, a US import which was active for several years. Its parent body in the US was declared dissolved after the massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin by VF associate Wade Michael Page. Its principal activist is (was) Chris Smith (AAA) and while active VF worked closely with the NR (Welf Herfurth). As of December 2016, VF remains defunct. April 2019 : VF remains deaded, but one of its members, Andrew Wilson, has re-emerged as a staffer with Senator Anning.

White Pride Coalition of Australia (WPCA)

Chiefly of historical interest, the WPCA was established in the early 2000s as a coalition of neo-Nazi and White supremacist groups. It was eventually disbanded but briefly re-emerged in 2014 as a Facebook page before disappearing again. Prominent members include(d) neo-Nazis Peter Campbell (Sydney) and Jim Perren (Brisbane). Both men were responsible for the ‘Whitelaw Towers’ blog.

Women for Aryan Unity (WAU)

In Australia, WAU is a tiny group very closely associated with the SCHS. Recently, it raised funds to support the Azov battalion in the Ukraine, to which many neo-Nazis and other fascists across Europe have been drawn. See also : The Azov movement and the Christchurch terror attack, Late Night Live (ABC), April 8, 2019.

Whitelaw Towers (WLT)

A long-running blog that shut up shop at the beginning of 2016, shortly after wrognly declaring that this blog was authored by a Monash academic, Rob Sparrow. Its two principal authors were Peter Campbell and Jim Perren, later supplemented by the efforts of Nathan Sykes. Campbell died a few years ago while Perren had a brief association with the UPF and Fortitude, helping them to organise a rally in Toowoomba and even being assigned a role by the UPF in Queensland: Perren has since repudiated the UPF.

Bonus t o u r s p i e l …

Since December 2016, a number of individuals have attempted to profit from resurgent interest in the far right by way of touring some of its leading foreign propagandists, in particular Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’), Stefan Molyneux, Lauren Southern and Nigel Farage (September 2018). Promoters have included QLD businessmen Ben & Dan Spiller (AKA AE Media/Future Now Australia), Dave Pellowe (Axiomatic Events) and Damien Costas (Filthy Gorgeous Productions Pty Ltd/Global Media & Entertainment Pty Ltd/Penthouse Australia). The first and likely most profitable tour was that undertaken by Yiannopoulos in December 2017 (Costas), while the Spiller Bros tried and failed on successive occasions to tour not only Yiannopoulos but McInnes, Yaxley-Lennon and Ann Coulter. Pellowe’s tour by Molyneux & Southern (July 2018) was, like others, not without its upsets, but did at least provide an opportunity for members of The Lads Society to gain employment. As of this date, Costas and his various enterprises are in deep legal and financial trouble, having been declared a bankrupt, pursued by ASIC for various alleged irregularities, and seemingly owing money to almost every other person involved in organising and promoting his cavalcade of racist stoopid. In CBD Melbourne (March 26, 2019), Samantha Hutchinson and Kylar Loussikian write:

Readers by now will be well acquainted with Penthouse publisher Damien Costas’ full dance card. He’s fighting bankruptcy proceedings in two states as well as the investigative gaze of ASIC.

But it’s worth mentioning an affidavit filed by publicist Max Markson’s Obelisk Ventures in the Victorian Supreme Court which contains a creditors list that reads like the production schedule from Sky After Dark.

Markson’s Markson Sparks publicity group is one of the biggest creditors listed, claiming almost $60,000 in unpaid bills.

But it’s not just rabble rousers and right-wingers who have been stiffed of payment.

A swag of Penthouse models, photographers and make-up crew were also left out of pocket, including former Beauty and the Geek star Jordan Finlayson, Maxim model Danie Sommers and specialist nude model Sylph Sia.

Others still owed money in February included Crikey writers Guy Rundle and Ben Hagemann, who was owed almost $3000, while Rundle was waiting on almost $1500.

Far-right activist Blair Cottrell has been rejected in his bid to fight for “free speech” in the High Court but will continue his campaign in Victoria’s County Court.

The United Patriots Front leader appeared in the County Court today to appeal his conviction for inciting hatred, contempt and ridicule of Muslims, after making a video beheading a dummy in protest of a Bendigo mosque. Cottrell and supporters Neil Erikson and Christopher Neil Shortis were convicted in September 2017 and fined $2000 each.

Lawyer John Bolton had lodged an application with the High Court, arguing Cottrell had been charged with an “invalid law” under the Australian constitution.

He previously told AAP “free speech” was protected under the constitution, “which protects political discourse”.

However, Mr Bolton told Judge Lisa Hannan on Tuesday the High Court dismissed the application, referring the matter back to the County Court. The lawyer said he would now argue there was “no such class of persons as Muslims” that could be offended by the video, given the variety among the Islamic faith.

“Who is this supposed to have caused people to think bad thoughts about?” he argued, adding he’d call witnesses to examine “what ‘Muslim’ means”. He added a comment about Saudi Arabian beheadings, to which Judge Hannan quickly replied was “not relevant”.

Mr Bolton also asked the judge to hear the “constitutional matter”, requiring her to notify the attorney-general but she said she didn’t have power to determine a constitutional matter.

The prosecution plans to call six witnesses to the trial, including City of Bendigo council workers and police.

“It’s being drawn out deliberately, I think, probably to see how much money we’ve got,” Cottrell told reporters outside court.

“I’m not going to give up.” Cottrell was supported in court by Erikson, who earlier abandoned his appeal bid.

After the hearing, Cottrell tweeted a video telling followers he hadn’t “failed anything”.

“The prosecution has found a law that the County Court can hear that matter — the High Court doesn’t need to, so the constitutional matter has been sent back to County Court for Judge Hannan to hear,” he said.

“I haven’t failed anything. The matter is still active. The law still may be unconstitutional.” The appeal was set down for 10 days from August 8, which Judge Hannan said she thought was too long.

• As reported here and elsewhere (9 News), serial pest and former UPF flunkey Neil Erikson was also in court to support his former fuehrer — Erikson is due back in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in May to fight charges of assault, riot and affray.

• Lawyer John Bolton repped Erikson at a previous court hearing in June, at which he successfully argued for an alteration in bail conditions so as to allow Erikson & Co. to do politics ‘n’ that. ABC: ‘A magistrate agreed to vary the men’s bail conditions today to allow them to associate for the “purpose of engaging in lawful political communication or assembling lawfully”. Outside court, Mr Erikson said it was important the group could “meet up and discuss politics” as they planned to register a political party called Cooks Convicts.’ Naturally, the party was never registered, and the name abandoned for another, ‘It’s OK To Be White’, which was also never registered; currently, Erikson is promoting Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning’s new party, the ‘Conservative Nationals’. See : Fraser Anning’s Neo-Nazi connections, The White Rose Society, January 11, 2019.

Above (L to R) : John Bolton, Blair Cottrell, Mark McDonald, Oscar Tuckfield. McDonald is the former fuehrer of neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Squadron 88’ turned The Lads Society organiser in Sydney; on Tuckfield and McDonald, see also : Neo-Nazi infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW (October 11, 2018).

• In October last year, Bolton organised a very smol ‘International Freedom of Speech’ rally outside Lakemba, which was attended by Cottrell, a smattering of local neo-Nazis, and various other odds & sods, including Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic — Grgurovic is due in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on February 26 over assault charges.

• As 9 News notes, Cottrell ‘has been convicted of numerous serious offences including arson and stalking’, along with seven counts of intentionally damaging property, failing to comply with a community-based order, two counts of recklessly causing serious injury, aggravated burglary, property damage, trafficking testosterone, possessing a controlled weapon and breaching court orders. Cottrell, as ‘Bruce’, appeared in a documentary about youth in the maximum-security Youth Unit at Port Phillip Prison in Truganina, in which he describes how he abused steroids, stalked his former partner and her boyfriend, tried to kill him, set fire to their house, and eventually got arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. You can read more about Cottrell’s political views here.

Troll Hunting by Australian journalist Ginger Gorman is a new book which examines the world of online hate and its human fallout. Along with interviews with a small number of trolls and general reflections upon this hateful world, Gorman’s book includes a number of case studies of trolling, some of which are relatively well-known while others not: all make for disturbing reading. While it’s of general relevance, many of the characters and events which populate this world would be especially familiar to (Australian) readers, or at least those who take an interest in such matters: on the one hand, ‘GamerGate’, convicted terrorist Joshua Goldberg, Andrew Auernheimer (AKA ‘weev’) and GNAA; on the other hand, those subject to what Gorman calls ‘predator trolling’, including writer Van Badham and lawyers Josh Bornstein and Mariam Veiszadeh (among others). Gorman’s book is well-written and engaging, and weaves together the author’s own experience of being ‘trolled’ with those of others, along with some examples of ‘troll hunting’ and ‘troll hunters’, the latter category including journalist and lawyer Luke McMahon. As well as being of general interest, the text is of particular interest to me because of the ways in which the ‘world of online hate’ has been ‘weaponized’ by elements of the far right, a theme explored in more detail in the anthology Cyber Racism and Community Resilience: Strategies for Combating Online Race Hate (Palgrave, 2017). At a little over 250 pages long, the text includes endnotes, which are useful, but — rather annoyingly — no index.

Gorman’s book is divided into three parts: ‘Trolls’, ‘Targets’ and ‘Troll hunting’. The first part examines the evolution of online trolling, the emergence of ‘predator trolls’ in particular — which Gorman defines (p.18) as those who set out to do real-life harm — and details the author’s lengthy conversations and interactions with several of its enthusiastic practitioners. In the second part, Gorman provides case studies of predator trolling and investigates the ways in which law enforcement has responded, or more precisely failed to respond, to these activities. Gorman also explores how social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have dealt with trolling and cyberhate generally — which is argued to be less-than-adequate. The third and final part of the book explores how some trolls, including Goldberg, came unstuck. Throughout the text, Gorman reflects upon her journey into this ‘world of online hate’, and how her interactions with the creatures which inhabit it change her understanding of them, their world, and its relationship to broader social and technological trends, especially racism and misogyny and the central place of social media in everyday life.

‘Trolling’ IRL

While the second part reveals varying degrees of incompetency and indifference on the part of tech companies, after documenting the systemic failure of law enforcement to address cyberbullying, Gorman does detect a more hopeful sign (pp.119–120):

Some stories are emerging of more appropriate, and effective, responses to cyberbullying complaints. Take comedian and writer Catherine Deveny. After making controversial comments on Twitter and Facebook about Anzac Day in 2018 — describing it as ‘Bogan Halloween’ and a ‘fetishisation of war and violence’ — she was doxed multiple times. Her home address was posted all over the internet and she received an avalanche of credible rape and death threats. She was the focus of several facebook hate groups. One night, five men in a ute turned up to her house. One of them knocked on her door and videoed himself doing it.

Within forty-eight hours of Deveny’s original comments being posted — and the resultant blow-up of public vitriol — Victorian counter-terrorism police reached out to her. They got her statement and started investigating. Police patrolled outside her house and work events. An investigator from the Office of the Federal eSafety Commissioner also got in touch. In contrast to many who’d gone before her, Deveny received significant and appropriate support. After hearing so many dire stories, it’s great to hear one like this. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all predator-trolling victims could rely on getting this kind of assistance?

LOL.

For what it’s worth, I remember when this incident took place, and at the time made brief reference to it on the blog. In which context, a few things. First, those responsible for paying Deveny a nocturnal visit included right-wing activists Julian de Ross (AKA ‘Hugh Pearson’), Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic and Ricky Turner. Secondly, whatever became of the intervention by Victorian counter-terrorism police and the Office of the Federal eSafety Commissioner, the boys carried on as before. Thus one month later, members of the same crew — on this occasion consisting of Paul Exley and Danny Peanna/Parkinson from Sydney, together with the Melbourne-based Grgurovic, Logan Spalding, and their ringleader Neil Erikson — filmed themselves disrupting a church service in Gosford; in June, Erikson, Turner and several others paid another nocturnal visit to a private address, on this occasion that of rival right-wing entrepreneur Dave Pellowe. While it’s unclear if those responsible for attending Deveny’s and Pellowe’s address faced any legal repercussions (it seems not), for his part in the disruption of the church service Erikson at least was later charged under an obscure law making it an offence to ‘obstruct a member of the clergy in the discharge of his or her duties’.

It’s possible, I suppose, to characterise this behaviour as ‘IRL trolling’ — but there’s certainly other interpretations. One critical difference is that, while it may be performed for teh lulz, unlike almost all of the examples of ‘trolling’ Gorman provides in her book, such actions are not really all that anonymous. In fact, while there’s occasionally some effort made to disguise the identities of those responsible, for the most part it’s very public — and by public I mean ‘filmed and then published by/on Facebook’. When de Ross, Grgurovic, Turner & Co. visited Deveny’s home; Exley, Peanna, Grgurovic, Spalding and Erikson disrupted a church service; and Erikson, Turner & Co. visited Pellowe’s home; these actions were undertaken precisely in order to be documented and distributed via Facebook. So too, the numerous other occasions upon which Erikson in particular has undertaken the role of a serial pest, from disrupting councilmeetings and various left and ‘multicultural’ events to stalking and abusing various public figures he happens to dislike. (Note that Grgurovic is due in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on February 26 over assault charges; Erikson, along with his kameraden Ricky Turner and Richard Whelan, have a date on May 13 over similar.)

All of these acts have been performed publicly and for the benefit of his Facebook audience, the corporation having granted Erikson permission to do so for at least the last four years. Thus, it was only in the space of the last few days that Facebook, for unknown reasons, banned a number of Erikson’s accounts. (It’s possible that the pest may have come unstuck upon announcing the re-launch of the ‘United Patriots Front’ by creating an event page for a February 16 rally at Federation Square — the UPF collapsed after Facebook banned its page in May 2017.) Still, there are hundreds if not thousands of very similar pages on the site, and it remains the critical tool for far-right organising in Australia and elsewhere. (See, for example, Fraser Anning’s Neo-Nazi connections (The White Rose Society, January 11, 2019) and Facebook Fueled Anti-Refugee Attacks in Germany, New Research Suggests (Amanda Taub and Max Fisher, The New York Times, August 21, 2018) for two among innumerable other instances.)

More broadly, while Gorman makes fairly short work of the corporate pablum spewed by Facebook and Twitter concerning their commitment to combating trolling and ‘hate speech’, if Facebook in particular is understood as being a massive private data-collection agency — one which derives a substantial proportion of its profits from selling this information to advertisers (and whoever else can pay for it) — it’s possible to cut through this nonsense fairly easily. Further, like corporations generally, Facebook is able to use the enormous financial and political power at its disposal to ensure the forms of regulation which might inhibit its continued growth and profitability are kept at bay. And while YouTube/Google doesn’t feature in Gorman’s account, its role in promoting racist and fascist propaganda, along with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, rivals that of Facebook, and has long been understood as a key node in the distribution and promotion of race-hate and other forms of hate speech (see, for example, ‘Fiction is outperforming reality’: how YouTube’s algorithm distorts truth, Paul Lewis, The Guardian, February 2, 2018 and ‘Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube’, Rebecca Lewis, Data & Society, September 9, 2018).

In any case, to return to Goldberg and Veiszadeh (pp.218–219):

Towards the end of 2014, [Veiszadeh] publicly voiced her outrage that a Woolworths supermarket in Cairns was selling singlets printed with the Australian flag alongside the tagline,’If you don’t love it, LEAVE’.

Three months after her tweet, the far right anti-Islam group The Australian Defence League posted her tweet to their Facebook page. From there, it was picked up by the alt-right Daily Stormer website. Chillingly, The Daily Stormer post about Veiszadeh, written under the byline Michael Slay, demanded of its thousands of followers: ‘Stormer Troll Army … assemble!’ ‘We need to flood this towelhead subhuman vermin with as much racial and religious abuse as we possibly can,” the spite-filled post reads …’

(Note that a few weeks ago the former ‘President’ of the ADL, Ralph Cerminara, was found ‘guilty of two counts of intimidation and one count of common assault’ after attacking his neighbour in Sydney.)

In addition to being attacked on The Daily Stormer, Veiszadeh’s tweet also triggered a Queensland woman, Jay-Leighsha Bauman, to send Veiszadeh messages calling her a “whore”, a “rag-head” and [telling] her to return to her own “sand dune country” — Bauman was later sentenced to 180 hours of community service for the crime. A few months later, an Ordinary Mum™ and Reclaim Australia supporter was charged with threatening to slit Veiszadeh’s throat. On these and other occasions, it seems the chief fault of those charged was not bothering to anonymise their threats; the fact that Bauman’s threats were reported on by both the BBC and CNN may also have prompted authorities to take a closer look. That said:

Later in 2015, Luke McMahon and Elise Potaka reported in Fairfax newspapers that Michael Slay turned out to be not one person, but two. One of those two men was Joshua Goldberg, whose main trolling preoccupation was preserving freedom of speech. As the troll hunter explained earlier, this was how he ended up choosing targets such as Josh Bornstein.

Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes

The ‘other’ Michael Slay was of course Jewish neo-Nazi and toy-doll enthusiast Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes, who was exposed by McMahon in April 2017. Like Goldberg, Sykes contributed scores of articles to The Daily Stormer, inter alia attacking Veiszadeh along with Badham, Bornstein, Dr Tim Soutphommasane and yours truly. Currently, Sykes is the chief writer for the ‘United Nationalists of Australia’ blog, the online shitsheet of the ‘Australia First Party’. In that capacity, Sykes attacks the various enemies of the AFP on the left as well as the right. Sometimes, this creates legal difficulties. Hence, after publishing an article in June 2017 by party leader Dr Jim Saleam which detailed alleged crimes committed by members of rival fascist groupuscule ‘Klub Nation’, in May 2018 legal action against Saleam and the blog was apparently taken by various persons associated with KN. (Member of this radical right-wing network are also implicated in an attempt to infiltrate the Young Nationals in NSW last year.) Beyond this, members of the neo-Nazi ‘Lads Society’ and, more recently, a man called Michael Freshwater, have also been attacked by Sykes on the UNA blog. While Sykes was dismissed by ex-UPF and Lads Society organiser Tom Sewell as a ‘divisive little Jew’, Freshwater, it’s alleged, has been part of a conspiracy to undermine AFP, embracing elements of the Liberal Party as well as neo-Nazis like Mark McDonald, the leader of the Lads Society in Sydney and former leader of neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Squadron 88’.

Notes

• Joshua Goldberg (as ‘Moon Metropolis’) published a statement on Medium on December 28, 2018 which provides a defence of sorts to his actions: ‘It was always my intention to infiltrate online jihadist spheres so that I could eventually become either a journalist, an FBI agent, or both.’ The statement also refers to … when I got Milo Yiannopoulos to publish that “expose” on Shaun King, I did it purely to see the shitstorm that I knew it would create, not because I actually care in the least about anything involving either Shaun King or Milo Yiannopoulos (both of those people are complete and utter clowns as far as I’m concerned). The article, ‘Did Black Lives Matter Organizer Shaun King Mislead Oprah Winfrey By Pretending To Be Biracial?’ (Breitbart, August 19, 2015), is dissected in this blogpost on Internet Famous Angry Men. Yiannopoulos is of course a very well-known troll who for several years was able to translate his trolling activities into sponsorship by wealthy right-wing reactionaries and sought to acquire more filthy lucre by conducting (semi-)lucrative tours. In fact, Yiannopoulos, along with Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, are supposedly being brought to Australia by Penthouse Australia publisher Damien Costas next month (March 9–14) for a speaking tour. For his part, Costas is currently embroiled in a legal battle with publicist Max Markson regarding alleged unpaid debts; there’s also allegedly been some fisticuffs. See also : Here’s How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled White Nationalism Into The Mainstream, Joseph Bernstein, BuzzFeed, October 5, 2017 (A cache of documents obtained by BuzzFeed News reveals the truth about Steve Bannon’s alt-right “killing machine.”).

• Gorman makes reference (pp.199-200) to a category of trolling known as ‘media fuckery’, and cites US academic Whitney Phillips who defines it as ‘the ability to turn the media against itself … by either amplifying or outright inventing a news item too sensational for media outlets to pass up’. This brought to mind two things. First, a recent example of ‘media fuckery’ in which a fake Facebook page titled ‘Melbourne Antifa’ applauded the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. This later featured in an article in The Daily Mail by Stephen Johnson (‘Melbourne Antifa extremists praise Las Vegas shooter’, October 2, 2017), was fact-checked by FactCheck.Org and Snopes and in May 2018 also triggered a bizarre interaction between myself and a right-wing blogger in the US. Secondly, the phrase immediately brought to mind similar terms such as ‘culture-jamming’ and ‘subvertising’, political practices which pre-date both ‘media fuckery’ and teh intarwebs as a whole. See : How To Make Trouble And Influence People.

• Gorman also makes reference (p.47) to local neo-Nazi activist Blair Cottrell in the context of a discussion regarding ‘hate leaching into the mainstream’ and Cottrell’s appearance as a very special guest on Adam Giles’ show on Sky News in August last year. As noted elsewhere, Cottrell – following an appearance on Sky News – told his 25,000 Twitter followers he might as well have raped presenter Laura Jayes on air because “not only would she have been happier with that but the reaction would’ve been the same”. In which context, a few things: first, while Facebook has banned the UPF and Cottrell, such commentary is considered acceptable by Twitter (to which platform Cotrell shifted after being kicked off Facebook). Secondly, his kamerad Neil Erikson made a similar remark directed at another female journalist, Jodi Lee, in November last year: ‘Jodie [sic] Lee acted like I had raped her on live TV….. She wishes!’ Thirdly, Cottrell has an extensive criminal record, mostly revolving around his stalking of an ex-girlfriend. Finally, Cotrell, Erikson and fellow white nationalist Chris Shortis were convicted in September 2017 of inciting hatred for Muslims; Cottrell is appealing the conviction on the grounds that the Victorian Act under which he was convicted (The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001) is in fact un-Constitutional, and will be appearing in the County Court in Victoria on February 19.

• While Gorman devotes relatively little space to d0xing, it’s relevant in several instances. In her chapter on weev, ‘A Professional Racist’, for example, Gorman notes (p.232) that weev appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast with Mike Enoch and Christopher ‘Crying Nazi’ Cantwell. Later in the chapter (p.236), Gorman also refers to ‘Azzmador’, who along with Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin wrote a post for the site encouraging their fellow neo-Nazis to attend the murderous ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. As it happens, Mike Enoch is in fact Mike Peinovich, who got d0xxed in January 2017, while ‘Azzmador’ is Robert Warren Ray. (According to a November 2018 report, Ray is currently a fugitive after being charged with a felony allegedly committed at the rally.) As for Cantwell, late last year he voiced an audio version of local neo-Nazi Ryan Fletcher’s tract ‘From HEMP to Hitler’, which has been promoted on David Hiscox’s AltRight website XYZ. See also : The far right, the “White Replacement” myth and the “Race War” brewing, Julie Nathan, ABC (Religion & Ethics), February 12, 2019:

The potential for violence which such online posts portend was graphically demonstrated in the United States in October 2018 by Robert Bowers, who wrote on Gab, a Twitter-like platform which is a haven for extremists and racists, “Screw your optics, I’m going in.” Shortly afterwards, he entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and murdered eleven Jews. Afterwards, Bowers told police that he was motivated by his belief that “the Jews” were “committing genocide to my people.”

Chillingly, these words were echoed by another Gab user, an Australian named Ryan Fletcher, who wrote, “I think its [sic] about time to say ‘f*** your optics I’m going in’.” Fletcher has a dark history of calling for the murder of Jews in Australia and worldwide, and of posting images of Jews being killed, on his Gab account. Fletcher subscribes to the myth: “#White gentiles are waking up to the agenda of #ZOG (which is #WhiteGenocide).” “ZOG” stands for “Zionist Occupied Government,” a term used to insinuate that “the Jews” control the United States and other Western governments. Fletcher also writes articles for XYZ.

• Speaking of neo-Nazis, Gorman notes that inre her own experience of being trolled in 2013 (pp.10–11), Six days after Newton was sentenced in 2013 came the second frightening moment. Don found a photo of our family on the fascist social network Iron March. The now-defunct website carried the slogan ‘Gas the kikes’ on its homepage. Iron March was of course the birthplace of Australian neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Antipodean Resistance’. Its British cousins, National Action, have been proscribed as a terrorist organisation (see : See Graham Macklin, ”Only Bullets will Stop Us!’: The banning of National Action’, Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol.12, No.6 (2018) [PDF]). See also : Extreme neo-Nazi ‘death cults’ drawing in children as young as 13, report warns, Lizzie Dearden, The Independent, February 17, 2019 (‘Exclusive: Children as young as 13 being drawn into ideologies ‘harder, darker and more committed than ever before’’).